Mushanokouji Saneatsu/Trivia
* Among the Shirakabaha (White Birch School), known as upper-class literature group, he had distinguished ancestry and title of a Viscount in kazoku system. However, his family suffered financial strains due to the early death of his father. Because his mother wanted to raise him to be "the only one of his kind in the world", he was raised mostly sheltered and unaware of those financial troubles. * He was last of eight children, only having brother Kintomo and sister Ikako. Others died early on after their births. * When he was a child, he had a nickname "Ohagi". * Through his life, he sort of disliked his family name, as it was rather long and problematic. The same was for his brother Kintomo. They would often refer to themselves as "Mushakouji", omitting the "no" which was kind of an equivalent to the German "von" or French "de". * Like many of the Shirakaba members, he did not do well in school, but he was by no means the worst compared to Shiga Naoya, who only became Mushanokouji's classmate because he repeated 2 years. They became classmates in 1902 and were no complete strangers by that time, as Shiga was Mushanokouji's brother's friend. ** His first impression of Shiga has been recorded in Aru Otoko as "Shiga was astonishingly elegant, the first dandy I had ever met, someone who walked around with a stick". * During summer break in 1895, he visited his uncle Kadenokouji Sukekoto, helping around with the household chores (especially with gardening). There he also first heard about Tolstoy, turning himself into Tolstoianism some years later. * In 1900 his cousin Tei from Osaka moved to Mushanokouji family's tenement house. His love for her was later recorded in many of his works like "A Certain Man" (Aru Otoko), "Good-Natured Person" (Omedetaki Hito) and "First Love" (Hatsu Koi). ** In 1903 winter Tei returned back to Osaka, leaving Mushanokouji heartbroken. He started to read Tolstoy more than ever for comfort. * In 1907 he founded "14th Day Society" together with his classmates Shiga Naoya, Kinoshita Rigen and Oogimachi Kinkazu. The group's general idea was to write and gather together every month's fourteenth day to read and discuss each others' writings. Topic and genre were up to one's own choice. Out of the four, Mushanokouji had the most problems as university life didn't fit him and he had had problems with writing before. Shiga and others wanted to help their friend and thus put up their savings and published in 1908 a book called "Wilderness" (Kouya) that had Mushanokouji's first writings. The book received bad reception, getting praise only from Arishima Takeo and later Nagayo Yoshirou. After this, Mushanokouji had hard times even reading because he was reminded about his failure. ** Later Oogimachi tried to cheer up him and suggested starting a magazine. "To edit just a monthly paper would keep us looking forward too long for the next number, so why not start a weekly? Even a few pages will do, but we could certainly do more if we try hard; and surely, Shiga and Kinoshita would be willing to join us." In 1908 July they started Bouya, which was a magazine later to fuse with other two magazines Mugi and Momozono, resulting in Shirakaba. * He met Arishima Takeo in 1907, a bit after the older man had came back to Japan after spending years abroad. Their friendship grew close quickly and Takeo was one of the first ones to receive Mushanokouji's new works. Takeo often praised them and encouraged him to write more. The same year, together they helped Shiga with the quarrel he had with his father. ** In the meantime, Mushanokouji was the one who encouraged Takeo to start writing (before Shirakaba he had written very little and Mushanokouji saw great potential in him, which was later proven to be true). ** In 1908 summer when Mushanokouji had visited him in Hokkaido, after the younger man's stay, Takeo had written into his diary "I felt sorry that I could not entertain Musha as I had expected. And Musha's character is something else than I had expected. He is nursery plant after all, but with rare gift of penetration and blending power of sentiment and reasoning." ** In 1918 when he started the Atarashiki Mura project, that time Takeo also wanted to try a project similiar to his friend's, but he saw flaws in Mushanokouji's project and feared the worst outcome. Trying to help and point out few important matters, their letter exchange eventually expanded to Shirakaba issues where they openly discussed the case in rather tense way. The outcome was a misunderstanding and eventually their friendship ended. * He once set off on a hiking tour with Shiga Naoya and subjected themselves to physical hardships to better understand the lives led by the poor. * Mushanokouji thought himself to be a genius, a child of destiny; he believed himself to be the most admired while in school and wondered if he himself was not the messiah for whom the world had been waiting. * He is the most prominent member of Shirakaba, which the public calls "spoiled darlings of the aristocracy". He was the editor, spokeperson and leader of this group. * He is the one who most represents the "ideals" of the Shirakaba, while his closest friend Shiga embodies "self-indulgence". They are the two extremes that most other Shirakaba members gravitated towards. * He attempted to create what he called "New Village" (Atarashiki Mura), a righteous community where equality and freedom could be realized. He contributed large amounts of his own money and time into its creation. * His lifelong dream to visit the West finally came true when in 1936 April he set off to Berlin, where he met his brother Kintomo who was a Japanese ambassador there. With the help of his brother he visited Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo and Budapest, eventually coming back to Berlin. Soon after that he decided to travel all alone to Italy via Switzerland. His trip culminated by a two-week stay in the United States and by December 12th he was back to Japan. After this trip his thoughts of the utopia-like West faded gradually, well seen in his diary entry that goes as: "I am not a man who can stay away from home for long. I have lost weight: it is ten days since I have eaten rice— All in all, Europe is pretty rough place". * He was known for his not-so-good usage of money. Despite originally coming from a wealthy lineage, he was often borrowing money from Shiga and other Shirakabaha members. The money was usually used for the group's benefit (getting new art, assuring the best materials for the magazine, storing their collection etc.) * Later in life he gained somewhat of a reputation of an artist, and he ultimately is far more remembered as a humanitarian idealist than he is as a writer of fiction. * He died at age 90 due to kidney failure.